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A Garden for the Arts Flourishes In Brooklyn

Amid a grassy lawn, pretty flowers and sculpted butterflies guests enjoyed light refreshments while grooving to the music of Kita P. who sang and played guitar, accompanied by her flutist. Storyteller Amadomo Bediako took us on a call and response adventure with an Anansi the Spider tale.

[Brooklyn]

They did it again.

In a whimsical garden behind a Gates Avenue brownstone artists, musicians, poets, and storytellers young and old gathered before an enthusiastic audience to show their work and play their music and sing their songs and spin their tales and touch our hearts and make us smile and shake our heads and sigh deep sighs and sometimes laugh out loud at the third Outdoor Garden Arts Exhibition, emceed by the eminent poet Louis Reyes Rivera.

Amid a grassy lawn, pretty flowers and sculpted butterflies guests enjoyed light refreshments while grooving to the music of Kita P. who sang and played guitar, accompanied by her flutist. Storyteller Amadomo Bediako took us on a call and response adventure with an Anansi the Spider tale.

We listened intently while writer Tony Mitchelson told his tale," Linyak Love", then chuckled at Alkamal Jemmott's poem "Staying Poor," and reflected on his poem "Attica," where he reminded us that September 13, 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of the Attica massacre, closing with "We shall never forget." Marcus Wright tickled us with his poem "Mama" about her laundry lesson.

Haitian born Leila Borgella sold tee shirts she designed to fund her one-woman campaign to bring independent living to displaced Haitian families still trapped in dirty, overcrowded camps since the earthquake, and to help a few of the many amputees in need of funds to pay for their prosthesis.

This lovely afternoon was presented free to the public by the Travelled Rhodes International Sculptor Arts Garden,a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and is sponsored in part by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Counsel, Inc. (BAC).

If you missed any the 2011 events, keep an eye out for their 2012 schedule.